Your words were a
glowing ember
that kindled a slow fire
in the dead wood of my heart.

I could breathe oxygen again
and pass the spark
to another.

Poetic Pyromania to prepare for NaPoWriMo 2017

Haunted by data, hounded by blog-bots, assailed by algorithms, poets have been reduced to human resources, fractionated, monetized and commodified like petrochemical residues of the antediluvian world. In keeping with that metaphor imposed upon us by ourselves, we await a mere spark to begin consuming our own fuel, flaming voraciously into poetic combustion. Through this incendiary process, we liberate the very energy that an unpoetic world seeks to label, quantify and merchandize. Flame, however, cannot be commodified—only intensified, suppressed, or extinguished. Elemental fire may be started by lightning, produced by physical friction, electro-chemical reaction, or started from a pre-existing blaze. Poetry is similar; whether sent from God as a bolt of epiphany, a spontaneous combustion, or as a transposed flame inspired by anterior works, April is our month for playing with metaphysical fire. It is thus that we, as elemental (or just mental ) poets, refuse, at all levels (lyrical, cultural, mercantile, geologic, celestial and infernal, etc.) to be co-opted, commodified, and/or in any way politically corrected.

We poetic oilmen and women are the active nihilists of a nihilistic era. We locate promising sites, then we draw up, from below the poetic bedrock, raw inspiration. NaPoWriMo allows us to drill deep into the sedimentary layers of poetry and tap into the deposits of lyrical fuel trapped within. Some gets pumped up, some comes gushing spontaneously to the surface in a crude form. It can then be refined to varying degrees of flammability and into differing types of fuel; think diesel versus jet fuel… one will take you further faster, but both are indeed fuel.

As oilmen and women, we pump our precious resource up in raw form from subterranean seas—the remains of lyric flora and fauna of a previous age buried under the silt of an inundation of data-driven global dullness. Through sheer creative will we set these deposits ablaze, to produce, out of the incoherent night that surrounds us, poetic illumination. In the light of our own flame, we cerebrate the utter uselessness of our artistic product—by continuing to create it, refine it, and then burn it up in a transcendent pyre of irrelevance. Thus, we wage uncompromising war against the powers and principalities of technoid global dominion. Our useless words, unread and unwanted, undermine the process of attempted global conquest by the unpoetic Enemy.

I’ll meet you in the meadow, among the wildflowers.
I’ll meet you on the mountaintop, at the break of dawn.
I’ll meet you by the fountain, where we will while away the hours;
I’ll greet you with a poem, I’ll greet you with a song.

I’ll meet you on the steps of the cathedral made of stone;
I’ll be wearing white and gold, and my hair will be braided.
We will walk toward the altar, where vows we will intone.
We would remember always, our love that never faded.

I’ll meet you in my visions, I’ll meet you in my dreams.
We live together always in my vivid memory.
We will never be apart in the essence of my psyche,
because although you died, you still live as part of me.

I think about you.
I think about you hard.
I didn't like your attitude;
it left my image of you marred.
You were immature,
sometimes a nasty ****.
But there’s a thought about you
that’s a real perk:
It might be naughty,
it might be sick,
but I find my thoughts turn pleasant
when I think about your ****.

You annoyed me day and night,
and drove me a bit crazy.
There are some things that  I remember
that I wish were hazy.
Your voice was whiny,
your habits loathsome.
You smoked and stayed up late;
I'd wish that I was lonesome.
Except for that bit about you--
the key that fit my lock--
it’s what I miss about you.
My dear, it’s just your ****.

You talked too much.
You weren’t very bright.
I pretended I was listening
as you rambled on all night.
You didn’t pay the bills.
I mostly cooked the food.
Our stupid arguments
left me in a foul mood.
But even when my thoughts
about you were at their meanest,
I somehow changed my view
when I thought about your *****.

There’s no way to separate
you from your biggest asset.
So though you looked like trouble,
in every single facet,
I tolerated much--
more than I’d like to remember--
because of my strange attraction
to your firm and friendly member.

"Distractions, yes! How I love them!
I love to keep the media guessing.
And I can do most anything
And still get my supporters' blessing.

"Wait until they see my budget.
I can hardly contain my laughter.
Crafty convincing will prove we don't
Need the programs I'm going after.

"The EPA? A waste of money.
How easy it will be to arrange
To spend our money on something much
More important than climate change!

"And programs for the needy? Bah!
Important to me is the person who offers
The most discreet methods of placing
Large amounts of cash in my coffers.

"My poorest supporters won’t even see
How badly they are being *******.
I'll keep blaming the dishonest press
And the Democrats' ineptitude.

"Those making over 250
Thousand dollars a year deserve
More in the way of tax breaks for they
Are the supporters I aim to serve.

"I don’t care if kids go hungry.
The rich and poor and in-between
Will benefit more if we direct funds
Into our giant war machine.

"I'm beside myself with joy.
I'm the expert. I'm so good
At making people think I give
A **** about their livelihood.

"The poor, the kids, the elderly,
People needing jobs…ALL
Will be so much better off
After I build my towering wall.

"I need my weekends at Mar-a-Lago.
It's there where I can clear my head.
Will three million dollars of taxpayer money
Per weekend put us in the red?

"It's great how you can manipulate
The people by making up facts and lies.
Most of them don't even know
You're pulling the wool over their eyes."

- by Bob B (3-17-17)